JUSTINIAN
NOVELLAE CONSTITUTIONES
(VENICE: BAPTISTA DE TORTIS, JANUARY 8, 1498).

Part of the Corpus Juris Civilis, the main collection of Roman law that survives from the ancient world, the Novels of Justinian was the collection of new legislation enacted after 534 C.E. in Justinian’s long reign.

Our copy of the work, an incunable, was published by the early Venetian printer Baptista de Tortis, in whose repertoire law books and Roman law texts in particular bulk large. The leather binding over wooden boards is contemporary to the book’s printing and features well-preserved designs stamped in blind, raised bands on the spine, and metal clasps. The large folio volume and beautiful, rubricated text would have conferred a sense of authority that a wealthy lawyer could well appreciate.

The addition of a handwritten index to the work is also notable, though not uncommon in incunable and post-incunable legal texts, before indexes became a standard feature. Although a beautiful volume, some early owner must have wished that the work of creating an index was not left to him.